(2017-09-20, 04:59 PM)DaveB Wrote: Because without selection at most steps, it you get a huge combinatorial explosion. If each step can go K ways, and there are N of them, you get K^N possible outcomes. So take K=4 and N=30, you get 1152921504606846976 outcomes - most of which will be nonsense. Darwin himself could have answered your question!Why do you say that most will be nonsense? Neutral theory proposes that most variation is neutral.
Quote:I mean, yes there may well be neutral genetic drift, but the only thing that gives it any reasonable chance of drifting into something useful, is Natural Selection (or, of course an ID based theory).I might agree that ultimately some selection is required to come up with something useful. However, you said:
... each step has to somehow be beneficial.
I don't think each step has to be beneficial.
Quote:Also, who is talking about neutral changes? Suppose you want to envisage the changes that supposedly transformed a land based mammal into a whale. Most of the changes would be far more likely to be deleterious until all had happened.
You keep saying this, but neutral theory suggests otherwise.
Quote:I mean what use would a pair of gills be until the creature could live in the water - they would probably be liable to dry out and become infected.Whales don't have gills.
~~ Paul
If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist. ---Yahzi